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The Way of the Drum

Listen closely, for the rhythm of life is all around you. The beating of your heart . . . the sound of your footsteps . . . the patter of soft rain on the roof . . . the ticking of a clock-from our own bodies to modern technology, life expresses itself in a musical chorus of sound and rhythm.

Drumming is one of the most ancient forms of music. The primal beat of the drum expresses the basic human desire to connect with each other and to express creative energy and emotion.

Anyone can pick up a drum and start banging away. But to truly connect with the drum and enter the "groove," the place where you feel the rhythm of life, requires you to give up ego-based fears of judgment and failure.

In his first book, Drumming the Spirit to Life , musician and author Buddy Helm showed you how to quiet your "inner critic" and follow the beat. In The Way of the Drum he returns with more insights on how the act of drumming can become an act of meditation, communication, healing, and celebration.

Part drumming workshop, part musical memoir, Buddy Helm shares the memories and lessons of a musical life. From playing with Chuck Berry to invoking the Drum God, this is the lyrical account of how one man discovered the way of the drum.

In the following excerpt, author Buddy Helm describes the wisdom of "the groove."

Grooves just are. They exist of and by themselves. We just tap into them when we hit a drum in a steady, relaxed motion.

Like an old footpath through the mountains, grooves have been followed for countless generations; like a deerpath that Indian hunters might have found, which becomes a trail that becomes a road then becomes a highway; so grooves are highways of the soul.

It is ridiculous to try to put this into words, because the drum says things that words cannot. The drummer is the voice of a language without words and without intellectual restraints-if it's done in the right spirit.

The wisdom that is obtained by following a groove is so subtle that there is no way to articulate it with words, except perhaps in poetry and song. The mystery is so immense that there would be no way to explain it with just words. That is what drumming ritual has always done. It defines the un-nameable.